Many years ago, prior to 9-11, as a reporter I would need to go to crime scenes or get into events in order to get good shots and interviews—do my job essentially. But sometimes there were security types who somehow didn’t believe that a news truck, news camera, and reporter/photographer made up an actual real-life TV reporting team. So my photographer came up with this brilliant idea—we’d make our own press pass. So we took digital pictures of ourselves (early in the days of digital photography), put some official looking words on paper and then laminated the cards. I even used the bar code on my Costco card just to add to the realism.
Thing is, it worked, as dorky as our “press passes” were. I think when it comes to gaining access to God, sometimes we have our own “press pass” that we want to pass off as making us genuinely worthy of entering God’s presence. That “press pass” could be our affiliation with a certain group, an act or ceremony we’ve performed, or the possession of something that makes us special.
In reality, none of that washes. It doesn’t matter who we are or what we think we have earned or had done to us—God knows what we are really like. In verse 6 Paul says “he will render to each according to his works.” The word “render” there (some translations use “reward”) mans to recompense or pay back, either for good or evil. You might say it’s like Newton’s Law of Motion: “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.”
So if you do good, you will get a reward, and if you do evil, you will receive wrath. The problem is our definition of “good” is not the same as God’s. Compared to Him, our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6), and there is no amount of good that can wipe away any amount of evil we do. Jesus said “No one is good except God alone.” (Mark 10:18)
That doesn’t stop some from trying to justify themselves before God. They do it either through what they possess (the Law), who they are (Jews), or by outward appearance (circumcision). Paul will burst each of those bubbles in this section of chapter 2.
1. Ignorance of the law is no excuse (12 – 16)
13 – Being like God, not hearing what God is like is the key (James 1:22-24)
The Jews would have to perfectly obey the Law in order to be “justified” (“declared righteous”). No Jews have succeeded in doing that. We need to remind ourselves that Paul is talking absolutes here. There are no degrees of righteousness with God, you are either right or not, as illustrated by James:
James 2:10-11 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. NKJV
14 – 15 The conscience acts to show us the character of God and how we do or do not measure up to it. It’s a crude instrument, though—only by looking into God’s Word do we see just how far away from God’s goodness we are.
16 – On the Day of Judgment, God will reveal the secrets of our hearts and show us where we have and have not been like Him in His goodness. Jew or Gentile, this will be “by Jesus Christ.” Jesus is our “advocate” and “mediator”. If judgment goes through Him then we are “declared righteous”. If we don’t use Jesus as a mediator then we will find ourselves lacking in the ability to be found good like God.
2. Reliance on the Law cuts both ways (17 – 24)
The Jewish nation had a special place. They were the receivers of God’s Word, they were supposed to be a light to the world about the true character of God and the benefits of having a relationship with Him, and they formed the womb for the Rescuer, Jesus the Messiah.
The problem was that they failed in two out of three of those charges. (1) They received the Law, but instead of being convicted by their lack of ability to follow it, they worshipped it. This became even more pronounced after the fall of Jerusalem. Jewish leaders basically purported that having the Law virtually guaranteed them a right relationship with Yahweh. And (2) instead of being a light to the Gentiles, they became an exclusive club to keep everyone else out.
Jesus said it well:
Luke 11:46-47"Woe to you lawyers also! For you load people with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.”
Paul is saying, you think you are so wonderful as a Jew who has the Law—you think you are so much better than the Gentile who is like a blind little child. Yet having the Law is not the same as obeying it.
He uses several illustrations to drive home the point: you teach but don’t learn, you say “don’t steal and don’t commit adultery, yet do those very things. You look down on idol worship, but then go right out and put such value on the idols that they are worthy of stealing (this was pretty common in Israel’s history as we’ve seen in our study of the Old Testament).
23 – You think you are so worthy of God’s honor but actually dishonor Him by not being like Him. It’s so bad that even people who have not grown up Jewish can see the hypocrisy.
If you want to use the Law (or your obedience) to cut down others remember that it is a two-edged sword. The more you try to force goodness by human means, the more your lack of ability to do that good will be clear.
3. Outward signs are only as good as they reflect an inward reality (25 – 29)
Circumcision was given by God to set the Jews apart, apart from the world and apart for God. But the act of circumcision itself did nothing. It was merely an outward sign of an inward reality. Today the modern counterpart would be baptism.
Colossians 2:11-15 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.
But as Peter says, the ceremony of baptism is not what cancels out our trespasses, but by nailing them to the cross.
1 Peter 3:21-22 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If you could be perfect on the inside, then circumcision (or baptism) might do you some good as a symbol. But as Paul will say, and Scripture teaches clearly, we are not perfect on the inside, and that’s why Jesus came. (see Jeremiah 17:9, Psalm 51:5, Isaiah 64:6).
Basically just looking good to others might get you noticed by other people, but it won’t get you anything from the Lord, who knows our hearts, and thoughts.
We are:
Not declared righteous by heritage
Not declared righteous by behavior
Not declared righteous by ceremony … it’s about a relationship
Let’s go back to chapter 1 verse 16. Paul is pushing out from under us any argument or justification that we get to God other than through the gospel, that we can become righteous through any other way than through Jesus Christ—and it all happens by faith, which is reliance and trust in something—in this case, Someone.
We saw in chapter 1 that you cannot deny God exists, ignore the difference between He and us as revealed in creation 1:18-23), run away from God by doing the evil we are naturally inclined to and think we escape accountability (1:24-32), or justify ourselves by how much better we are than those around us (comparative morality, 2:1-5).
Paul says then that only those that “do” the Law will be “justified” or “declared righteous.” How can we do the Law? Only by having the Law written on our hearts.
Jeremiah 31:33 I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts.
And that’s not just our conscience, but the very character of God, having taken up personal residency in us through faith in Jesus, The Spirit (notice in verse 29 the capital “S”), the Spirit is re-wiring our character from the inside so that we naturally start doing good and it is actually good because He has given us a new nature.
• Your pedigree buys you nothing in God’s eyes (12 – 16)
• If you think you know so much, think again (17 – 24)
• Give God a piece of paper to write on (cooperate with the Spirit)
For those of us who already know Jesus, and rely on him, today this section of Scripture should be an occasion for rejoicing!
Romans 5:16 For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.
Benediction:
1 Peter 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
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